


Another Head Aches, Another Heart Breaks

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Play Along [32]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Gen, band au, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7774939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "any, any, Without you / The earth turns / The sun burns / But I die without you"</p><p>Rodney finally understands how John felt about him - and how he feels about John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Head Aches, Another Heart Breaks

Rodney wasn't sure why he was irritated that Cam had reconnected with John, but he was. What irritated him even more was the fact that Cam hadn't told Rodney that he'd reconnected with John. Cam and Rodney weren't really friends, so Rodney knew Cam had zero obligation to tell Rodney about his personal life. Cam just had an irritating habit of discussing his personal life with his bandmates during breaks in recording.   
  
"Hey Grace," Cam said, wagging his phone. "Check this out. Evan sent me this video. On a scale of one to ten, how much do you think it'll irritate John to watch it?"  
  
Rodney was also irrationally irritated by the fact of Cam's continued friendship with Evan Lorne, who'd contributed quite handily to Jennifer and John almost dying.  
  
Grace came to peer over Cam's shoulder. "Fire it up and let me see."  
  
Cam angled his phone so she could see it and pressed play, and Rodney did his best to appear nonchalant while he adjusted Vala's effects rack, but then he heard the video. It was of the impromptu performance the Space Monkeys had done at that photo shoot, the day John's father had disowned him.  
  
"Is John dressed as a Civil War soldier?" Grace giggled. "That's hilarious. Really sad song though." She leaned in closer. "That harmony right there was really cool. Can you play that back?"  
  
Cam poked at the screen and paused the video, scrubbed it back.  
  
"Thanks," Grace said, cocking her head to listen. Then she paused. "Oh. Right there. Did you see that?" She sounded almost - apologetic.   
  
"Yeah, I did," Cam said wryly.   
  
"How old is this video? I think kind of old. I totally remember that photo shoot. Vala wanted to do our own cowboy photo shoot after she saw the photos."  
  
"That's right. A space cowboy shoot." Cam laughed.   
  
"Did you know?" Grace darted a look at Rodney, who resumed adjusting the effects rack.   
  
"Yeah, I did," Cam said.  
  
"You did? But you and John -"  
  
"Weren't looking to be soulmates."  
  
Grace darted another glance at Rodney. "You think this video will upset John? More than just the silliness of his costume."   
  
"Naw. After all, he and Rodney are over each other." Cam cackled gleefully. "There. Sent it. Do you know any good Civil War jokes? Or cowboy jokes?"  
  
"No," Grace said. "I know lots of Korean jokes, but I don't think those are appropriate for this situation."  
  
Cam tapped out a message and sent the video, and Grace snorted. "That's the best you can do?"  
  
Before Cam could make a retort, Hank rapped on the window from the engineering booth, beckoned to them, and they ducked out of the studio. Cam left his phone behind.

Rodney had discovered, in his assignment with the Snakeskinners, that Cam Mitchell was surprisingly absentminded. He was always leaving important things lying around - his wallet, his phone, his keys - but he had a preternatural sense for where Vala's guitar picks were at all times. It would be hours before he realized his phone was missing. So he wouldn't notice if Rodney borrowed his phone just long enough to send himself the video. As soon as he confirmed that the video was downloaded onto his phone, Rodney erased the sent message on Cam's phone, and he ducked out of the studio. Judging by the way Hank was waving his hands, he was going to be talking to Cam and Grace for a long time.  
  
Rodney made a beeline for the staff break room, which wasn't nearly as nice as the artist break room, and dug in his satchel for his headphones. He plugged them into his phone and fired up the video. The song had already started by the time Evan started filming, opening up right in the middle of the first verse.  
  
Rodney's chest tightened. He remembered how infrequently he'd actually played with the Space Monkeys before Jennifer left the band, how he'd always been a bit nervous about playing with them in her place. He'd always been incredibly nervous about playing where other people could hear, especially after that disastrous recital when he was twelve, when his piano teacher told him he had no soul.  
  
He could see why Evan had decided to film this performance. They sounded good together. All five of them. He missed Jennifer fiercely right then, seeing her smiling and happy and not nearly as thin as she'd been at the end, not nearly as pinched and pale and sad. Right there, she looked happy. Rodney might have considered performing sooner if it had been just him and Jennifer.  
  
The chorus hit, and Grace had been right - the harmony was really good.  
  
And then Rodney saw what had made Grace pause. The way John was looking at him. It was the way Rodney was looking at Jennifer.  
  
John had said it so many times, but Rodney hadn't really understood it. John was _in love_ with him. He remembered the look on John's face after that final, fateful concert, the intent and heat in his gaze as he'd cut through the crowd backstage, heading straight for Rodney. He remembered John's candid answer to Rodney's question, about why he loved Rodney, and it had sounded - unreal. Too good to be true. Rodney knew Jennifer loved him in spite of his quirks, his temper and his idiosyncrasies. But the fierce longing in John's gaze on that video was something Rodney hadn't understood.   
  
And then he saw Teyla, on the video, nudge John, catch his gaze, break the moment. She was protecting John, Rodney realized. Protecting the band, protecting people from noticing the way John felt. Obviously Evan had noticed, because he hadn't posted this video, while he'd posted plenty of other candid, behind-the-scenes videos (subject to Elizabeth's approval, of course). Had Elizabeth seen this video? Had she specifically disapproved of it?  
  
Rodney felt hollow inside, cheated. He'd thought, for a while there, that he knew John. Knew more about him than just about anyone else in the world - about his terrible relationship with his father, eventually about the death of his mother. Knew how he wrote his songs. Knew how he looked when he closed his eyes and leaned in for a kiss.  
  
Rodney remembered the uneasy sensation that had buzzed under his skin when he first realized Cam and John were together, and how it had bothered him, that Cam and John were still together even after John told Rodney how he felt.  
  
Rodney shut down the video and fired up the YouTube app on his phone. He'd never cared to look at clips of Space Monkeys performances before. Luckily enough, there were some die-hard Space Monkeys fans from early on, because Rodney found a playlist of live performance clips from back in the day, when they were barely regulars at Duffy's. Whoever had made the playlist was obviously a John fan, because every video was of a song John sang lead or co-lead on, or had a good guitar solo in.

It took Rodney all of three videos to realize that John's smile, the one that made the girls in the front row scream, wasn't for the girls in the front row. It was for Rodney, just off to the side of them, focused on running their sound.  
  
Rodney thought of John, somber in a dark suit, lingering at the edge of the crowd gathered around Kaleb Miller's grave site - because Newton knew hardly anyone had showed up for Rodney's parents. He remembered the sorrow and sympathy - no, empathy - in John's eyes.  
  
And he remembered Jeannie, tucked into his side and sobbing, and he remembered gazing into nothing, thinking of the future ahead of him, of doing everything he could to support Jeannie while she was in mourning, to help her raise her fatherless child, neither of them educated, both of them desperate. The money from the Space Monkeys album would help, but not nearly enough.  
  
He remembered John reaching out to him and he remembered turning away, because on top of everything, he couldn't handle the puzzle that was John Sheppard, loving him but kissing Cam Mitchell.  
  
Rodney took a deep breath and opened up his address book. John's number was still on his favorites list. He pressed it.   
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Hey, John."  
  
"No, John and I switched phones. This is Dave. Who is this?"  
  
"Oh. I - this is Rodney."  
  
"Rodney? McKay?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Hey, look, I'm really sorry about what happened to your family, but John's not doing the band thing anymore."  
  
"I -"  
  
"He needs a break from...everything right now."  
  
"I understand."  
  
"I'm sure you do."  
  
"Can you send me John's phone number?"  
  
"I don't think that's a very good idea," Dave said gently. "Like I said, he's moved on."  
  
"Right. Thanks."  
  
Rodney shut off his phone and yanked out his headphones, shoved them back into his satchel.  
  
He headed back into the studio, where Vala was cooing over her new effects rack, and realized that somewhere along the way, he'd fallen in love with John Sheppard and lost him before he ever had him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from All These Things That I've Done by The Killers


End file.
